


Method Acting

by Mithen



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst and Humor, Apologies, Friendship, Gen, Kayfabe Compliant, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 01:11:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: Sami Zayn's not going to turn down a chance to voice-act an animated surfing penguin--not even when he finds out who's been cast to play his "best friend."





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Surf's Up 2: Wavemania](https://youtu.be/kEfQpBuRzaI) is a real thing that I can hardly wait for, even if it doesn't actually have Kevin and Sami in it.

“You’re going to be a penguin.”

Sami Zayn grinned at the look on Neville’s face. “A _surfing_ penguin, actually.”

“A surfing penguin. An animated surfing wrestler penguin in a sequel to a decade-old movie.”

Sami shrugged. “I know, it’s crazy, but come on, how could I say no? Extra royalties, extra merch--”

“--You just want to see yourself as a penguin,” Neville said accusingly.

“And _you’re_ just jealous,” Sami retorted, taking a sip of coffee. “You want to be the Penguin Gravity Forgot.”

Neville snickered and shrugged, granting the point. “So what’s your character like?”

“I don’t have all the details yet, but Hunter told me it’s a minor character in a little subplot. My character is named Zany--hey, no laughing--and he’s a ska-loving surfing penguin with more heart than cash. He and his best friend want to join a gang of surfer penguins called the Hang 5 to find a legendary surfing spot. But only one of them can go, so his friend sabotages his surfboard. He doesn’t really mean for Zany to get hurt, but he does, and it’s--” Sami waved a hand vaguely in the air. “You know, in the end it’s all about the power of friendship and stuff.”

“Oh.” Neville took a bite of his danish and chewed thoughtfully. “So who’ll be playing Zany’s friend?”

“Dunno,” Sami said with a shrug. “I assume another wrestler, someone who…” His voice trailed off as he looked at the expression on Neville’s face. “You don’t think…”

Neville raised his eyebrows. 

“No,” said Sami, aghast. “No way. They wouldn’t. They _wouldn’t._ ”

* * *

“...They would,” Sami mumbled, glaring across the meeting room table at the writer who was sitting with his hands steepled, smiling nervously at him. At the both of them.

“I’m Gregorio Eustice,” said the writer, “but you can just call me Gregorio.” He was gangly and rumpled and looked like he had been having a hard day already and didn’t expect it to get better. “You must be Sami. And you must be--”

“I’m only doing this for my kids,” Kevin Owens snarled at Gregorio, not looking at Sami. 

“You must be Kevin, of course,” said Gregorio wearily. “I’ve been informed that the two of you don’t have the best working relationship, so let me just run over the basics with you: your subplot will take about a day of work to record. We want to have you in the same room for your dialogue, it simply works better that way. The script is still being finalized, but we do have your character designs…” He rummaged in a briefcase. “...right here.”

He spread a few pieces of paper out on the desk.

“We decided to make Zany a king penguin--”

Sami picked up a drawing of a tall, sleek penguin with a bright orange circle behind its eyes and another orange patch at the throat. “Hey,” he said, delighted, “You gave him my hat!”

Indeed, Zany had a goofy look on his long-beaked face and a cloth cap perched atop his head, his flippers posed as if he were skanking. 

Sami started to laugh. “That’s pretty cool,” he said.

“And Kevin’s penguin is named KO, and we’re going with a rockhopper for him,” Gregorio said, holding up a picture of a wide, belligerent-looking penguin with bristly feathers on top of his head, his red eyes framed by a fringe of yellow feathers.

“Is there going to be merch?” Kevin asked, grabbing it from Gregorio’s hands and eyeing it. “Are my kids going to be able to buy a penguin that looks like me?”

“Yes, there are plans both for some plush dolls and action figures.”

A brief look of satisfaction crossed Kevin’s face, and he nodded. Then he frowned. “Could you make my penguin a little more… you know…” He squared his shoulders and put out his chest. “A little more _buff?_ ”

“I’ll talk to the animators about it,” Gregorio said.

Kevin looked wistful. “Maybe put some abs on him?”

Sami couldn’t help needling him: “I don’t think penguins have abs, Kev.”

“They don’t have stupid hats or surfboards either,” Kevin pointed out triumphantly. “Abs would not be the most unrealistic thing about the penguins in this movie, I’m just saying.”

“Yes, yes, we will talk to the animators about it,” Gregorio said with the air of someone who realizes a conversation could slide out of control at any minute. He stood up and collected the drawings, stuffing them back in his briefcase. “The recording date is in two weeks, I’m sure we’ll have the script to you by then.”

The door shut behind him, and there was an awkward silence. “Look,” said Kevin, “Hunter asked me to do it. And Owen really wants his bedroom redone with Ninja Turtles, and this would cover it--”

“--You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Kev,” said Sami. “As long as we keep everything professional, I’m sure we can work together for one day.”

“Professional. Right.” Kevin nodded. “I can do that.” He looked down at the table and Sami saw the corner of his mouth twitch in something close to a smile. “Never expected I’d be playing a surfing penguin, that’s for sure,” he said.

“Life is weird,” Sami agreed.

“Life is _fucking_ weird,” muttered Kevin.

* * *

“I can’t believe they gave your penguin that stupid hat,” Sasha Banks said.

Bayley looked reproachfully at her. “I bet he’s super-cute.”

“Man, I wanna be a penguin,” Big E complained. This set off a burst of discussion about what kind of penguins different wrestlers would be, which somehow led to Sami having to do a penguin impersonation, because of course it did.

“You just--” Sami put his knees together and shuffled about catering, flapping his arms like flippers to howls of laughter from the other wrestlers.

“You make a great penguin!” Bayley called.

“Why, thank you!” Sami tried to bow and became comically unbalanced, staggering backwards with his arms pinwheeling--

And smacked up against a solid, warm body in the doorway.

He didn’t even have to turn around. “You want to show us your penguin impersonation, Kev?”

“Not really,” said Kevin. “Yours could use some work, too.”

“Oh really?” Sami said, stung. He had thought it was pretty good.

“We’ll go to the zoo this weekend and do some field work.”

Sami squinted at him. “You do know they’re only using our voices, right?”

Kevin frowned. “If you’re going to be a penguin, you have to think like a penguin and know how a penguin moves and stuff. It makes a difference.”

“Oooh, Owens is a method actor,” said Sasha.

Kevin’s frown deepened. “I don’t know what that means,” he said, managing to make it sound like this was somehow Sasha’s fault.

“Method acting,” said Xavier, striking a dramatic pose, “is when an actor tries to fully enter the mindset of the character they’re playing in order to identify with and understand them.”

“That sounds a little more involved than necessary,” Sami said.

Kevin crossed his arms and looked at him. “I’m not going to get many chances to be a penguin,” he said. “I want to get it right.”

“You just want to go to the zoo.”

Kevin continued to look at him.

“Oh, all right,” said Sami, throwing up his hands. “We’ll go look at the damn penguins.”

Kevin almost smiled, then managed to stop himself just in time.

* * *

“Kevin.”

Sami looked at his watch, shifting uncomfortably on the bench.

“Kev.”

Kevin grunted without looking at Sami, his attention still locked on the penguins frolicking beyond the glass wall.

“Kev, we’ve been watching the penguins for forty-five minutes now.”

“Uh-huh.” Kevin didn’t look away or seem inclined to move.

Sami sighed. People somehow always assumed going to the zoo with Kevin would be a fun experience--people who had never actually _been_ to a zoo with Kevin and had thus never been dragged methodically from exhibit to exhibit with laser-focused intensity. Kevin didn’t seem to _enjoy_ going to zoos so much as _consume them whole._

Kind of like he treated life. And his friends, Sami thought ruefully. 

Another fifteen minutes passed, in which Sami… well, he had to admit it was kind of nice to spend some time with Kevin in which neither of them was trying to kill the other. He leaned back and closed his eyes, listening to the splashing, thinking about what motivated Zany the Ska-Loving Surfing Penguin. Thinking about fame and fortune and chasing the next big wave, always the next big wave.

Finally he yawned and stretched, glancing over at Kevin, who was still rapt in his penguin-watching. “Hey,” Sami said, finally deploying the only known way to get Kevin to move during a zoo visit, “if we don’t get going we won’t get to the tigers before the zoo closes.”

He half-expected that Kevin would scathingly point out that this wasn’t a “fun buddy day out” and they were only here for research purposes, but Kevin jumped to his feet and grabbed Sami’s sleeve. “Good point, let’s go,” he said.

The tigers were cool, and the elephants were impressive, and Kevin got laughing so hard at the antics of two baby baboons Sami thought he might hurt himself.

And then they went back to the penguin exhibit and spent the last hour there until the zoo closed and kicked them out.

* * *

Sami leaned into the microphone. “The Trenches!” he announced, pitching his voice into excitement. “The Trenches have the biggest waves in the world. Only the very bravest and boldest surfers ever dare them. And you’re telling me the Hang 5 has a map and they’re looking for penguins to come along?” He hopped up and down, grinning, letting Zany’s joy flow through him and kindle his words. “KO, we can finally get there! We can finally get there together!”

“If we conquer the Trenches, we’ll be the most famous penguins in the world,” Kevin said, and Sami could hear awe and anticipation lighting his voice despite himself. It sounded so _familiar,_ an echo from long ago. “All our dreams, Zany… they can finally come true.” He looked over at Sami and smiled, bright and eager and full of hope. And then his face fell and he looked away again, dropping the act.

“Let’s go talk to them! Ask if we can go along!” Sami said quickly, moving on to the next line.

“Oh man,” Kevin read, “I don’t know. That McMahon guy looks like he’d just as soon eat us as team up with us. I’m not sure we’re exactly what he’s looking for.”

“We’ll go together,” Sami said into the mic, not looking at Kevin. “As long as we’re together, nothing can stop us!”

The red light went out and Sami felt his shoulders sag with relief. With the typical chaos that seemed to accompany all wrestling ventures, they hadn’t gotten the script until they arrived at the studio, so he hadn’t even had a chance to read it, he was only a couple of lines ahead as he read them. But so far so good. He hoped.

The door opened and Gregorio came into the room, smiling apologetically. “We are still _so sorry_ about the mixup with the scripts--”

“--Skip it,” Kevin said. “We’re professionals, we can deal.”

“You got a line wrong,” Sami said.

Kevin frowned. “Did not.”

“Did too,” said Sami. “You said ‘I’m not sure we’re exactly what he’s looking for.’ The line in the script is ‘I’m not sure we’ve got what he’s looking for.’”

“It’s almost the same,” Kevin glowered.

“And it doesn’t matter a bit,” Gregorio cut in hurriedly. “We do the animation later and match the animation to the voices, so if you’re a little off and we decide to keep it, it’s no problem. There’s room for some error, don’t worry.” He nodded briskly. “Okay, that’s your first scene done. Let’s take a break, and you can maybe run over your lines a bit more and then come back for the scene where they find out they can’t both go.”

Kevin and Sami found a spot in the studio’s little break room. Sami left Kevin poring over the script and went to find some coffee. He got lost, and had to ask directions, and then the person wanted his autograph, and… When he finally got back, Kevin was scowling at the script. As Sami sat down, he threw it on the table. “I’m not doing this,” he announced. “They’ll have to find someone else.”

“What?” Sami stared at him. “You can’t just back out now.”

“Says who?” Kevin’s face was set and thunderous.

“Okay,” said Sami, “but if you back out, you’ll never get to be made into a penguin plushie.” Kevin’s scowl wobbled, and Sami pressed the attack: “I’ll send your daughter a Zany doll instead. I bet she’ll love it. I bet she’ll carry it around everywhere and cry if she can’t find it.” He wasn’t even sure why he didn’t want Kevin to leave; surely it would be an easier job if Zany’s friend were played by Cesaro or Neville or--hell, Rusev would be better than Kevin. It was just… well, Sami didn’t like to leave things unfinished, he guessed. He liked closure. “And that Ninja Turtles bedroom would sure make your son happy…”

Kevin muttered something rude under his breath and Sami could hear his teeth grinding.

Gregorio appeared in the doorway. “Break’s over, back to the studio!”

“What?” Sami picked up the script. “But I haven’t even had time to finish my coffee, much less read…”

Kevin plucked the script from his hands. “That KO doll had better be the cutest thing ever made,” he muttered as he brushed past Sami. “And it better have abs.”

“Oh,” Sami called after him down the corridor as he followed, putting every ounce of sarcasm he could into it, “How could _anything_ based on you _fail_ to be cute! You’re the cutest wrestler ever!”

“Thank you!” Kevin yelled back over his shoulder.

* * *

“I know they said there were two openings,” Sami said in Zany’s voice. He let his whole body wilt in despair, drooping under the weight of his disappointment. “But I talked to Hunter and he said there was only one now. Only one of us can go to the Trenches.”

There was a pause; Sami looked over to see Kevin staring fixedly at his script. Behind the glass in the sound studio, Gregorio’s eyebrows went up as if to try and nudge Kevin into speaking.

“But...how do we choose?” Kevin read.

“Hunter said that we could have a surfing contest,” said Sami. “Just you and me. And he’ll pick the best one to go from that.”

“That sounds fair,” Kevin said. The next line was marked to be delivered “slowly, as if an idea has just come to him.” Kevin swallowed hard. “That sounds...fair,” he said again, with a terrible emphasis.

The red light went out. Silence fell. Neither Sami nor Kevin looked at each other.

“All right,” came Gregorio’s voice over the intercom. “Let’s move ahead to the next scene. This is the conversation just before the surfing contest. They’re about to start, and Zany doesn’t know that KO has sabotaged his surfboard. Annnnd--go.”

The red light blinked on again like a baleful eye, watching them. Sami’s mouth was dry as he skimmed ahead hastily in the dialogue. He took a breath. “KO, before we start, I just want you to know…”

“Yeah? What?” Kevin’s voice was brusque, dismissive. 

“I want you to know that if I do win, and I get to go to the Trenches without you and catch the world’s biggest wave, it...it won’t mean as much without my buddy by my side.” Method acting, Sami thought. Try to imagine what it feels like to care about someone this much. Try to imagine. “I mean, I want to go, but at the same time… I almost hope you win. Because you’re--” Sami choked and recovered, “you’re so great and you’re my best friend, and our friendship is more important to me than _anything,_ Ke--” He caught himself and stammered, “KO. So good luck and may the best penguin win!”

“May the best penguin win,” said Kevin, and it should have sounded ridiculous, but he said it with a sort of heavy exhaustion and something close to disgust, turned inward.

The red light went out. “Uh, Kevin?” said Gregorio. “Could you say that with a little more evil glee? Like, you know, ‘muahaha?’”

Kevin raised his eyes from the script to look at Gregorio, and Gregorio moved back a step despite the pane of glass between them. 

“No,” said Kevin.

“Oooookay then,” said Gregorio. He turned to Sami, licking his lips nervously. “All right, the next scene is all Cody and his friends watching you surf and realizing that something is wrong with your board. So all we really need from you in this scene is a scream.”

Sami squinted at him. “A what?” 

“You know, Zany has to scream when his board breaks and he gets thrown into the wave. Just--” Gregorio waved a hand in the air, “--just make a sound that matches. And...go.”

The red light came back on. 

Sami looked at the microphone in front of him, uncertain. What would that sound like? What kind of sound would you make when you felt your support giving way, the wave looming, cold and deep and ready to break you? Method acting. Was there a moment when Zany realized his friend had thrown him aside for his ambition? What would that sound like, the instant that he knew everything was lost and the future was shattered, and there was nothing left at all, nothing left that he could trust, nothing that would save him from the pain and the grief and the despair?

_What would that sound like?_

* * *

The break room was silent except for the sound of Kevin’s footsteps as he paced back and forth, pale and sweating. A similarly rattled-looking Gregorio had announced it might be a good idea to take a breather after the accident scene, and had dropped them off in the break room, looking relieved to get away from them both.

“This is bullshit,” Kevin said abruptly. “The next scene is total bullshit, and I’m not doing it.”

Sami felt terribly tired. “I haven’t had time--” He stopped, startled at how hoarse his voice was, and took a sip of coffee. “I haven’t had time to read it.”

“Oh, it’s KO’s big weepy _apology_ where the movie gets to hammer home the _power of friendship_ and all that,” Kevin snarled. “As if KO’s the _bad guy_ or something.”

Sami closed his eyes. It just didn’t seem worth it to argue about the motivations of animated penguins, somehow. It didn’t matter.

“I’m telling you,” Kevin went on as if Sami had argued with him, “It makes no sense. I’m telling you that KO isn’t ever waking up from a nightmare of his friend getting hurt. He’s put it right out of his head, he’s focused on the Trenches, on the future, not the past. And if-- _if_ \--he ever did wake up in the middle of the night, he sure as hell wouldn’t waste any time feeling _bad_ about it. KO isn’t staring at the ceiling feeling sad or regretful or any of that, and he _definitely_ isn’t tempted for a _second_ to run to the hospital to beg his buddy to forgive him!”

Kevin smacked his fist into his palm to accent his words, then stared at his hands as if surprised it had hurt.

“No,” he went on, his gaze still fixed on his hands, “If KO wakes up in the middle of the night, he doesn’t feel bad, he doesn’t feel regretful, he doesn’t get all sniffly! You know what he does? You know what he does?”

Sami shook his head, but Kevin wasn’t even looking at him.

“What he does, is he gets up and he goes downstairs and he gets something to eat and he doesn’t waste time feeling _anything,_ he just sits in the kitchen in the dark, alone, not feeling anything at all, and...” Kevin’s voice faltered, and then he rallied: “...and he eats some _raw fish_ , because KO is a _penguin_ , not a person, and that’s what penguins probably have in their refrigerators!” he finished with an air of triumphant relief.

“Kevin,” said Sami.

Kevin whirled on him as if Sami had accused him of something and leveled a finger at him, though his gaze was fixed past Sami’s shoulder, not on his eyes. “This is a dumb scene, and they’ve gotten KO all wrong, and I am not going to--”

From the table, his phone buzzed with a text at exactly the same time Sami’s did. They both picked up their phones to read the message from Hunter: _Gregorio says you’re being difficult. Knock it off. Or else._

Sami watched Kevin swallow, watched his eyes flicker. “You can get through this,” Sami heard himself say. “Just say the lines and get it done. Think about taking your kids to the premiere and buying them a KO penguin, and just read the words on the page.”

Kevin blinked warily in his general direction. “Right,” he said. “That’s...that’s exactly what I was going to do. Of course.”

“Well,” said Sami, finishing his coffee, “let’s get back in there and get it over with.”

* * *

“Okay,” said Gregorio’s voice through the intercom. “Big reconciliation theme, the power of friendship and all that good stuff. Ready?” He looked at them both, then apparently decided to take their silence as consent. “And...go!”

Sami cleared his throat and started into his first line. The scene was supposed to start with KO showing up just before dawn at Zany’s hospital bed. “KO?” Sami said, his voice wavering with surprise. “But...the Hang 5 are leaving at sunrise. What are you doing here?”

“I’m not going with them,” Kevin said.

“What?”

“When I saw your board break--” Kevin swallowed hard. “I tried to tell myself it was worth it to get to the Trenches, I tried to tell myself you would have done the same thing--”

“I wouldn’t have,” Sami said sharply.

“ _I know,”_ Kevin snapped. “I know that. And tonight I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to say to you, all the explanations and reasons and excuses, and then finally I realized there was only one thing I wanted to say.”

He stopped, and Sami glanced ahead at the next line, which was: _I’m sorry,_ followed by a discussion of how Cody Maverick’s speech had made him realize he didn’t deserve to go to the Trenches.

There was a silence, and then Kevin made a small choked sound and said, “I’m sorry.” Then he rocked forward, his shoulders hunching, and gasped: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” 

The words sounded wrenched from him; Sami looked over in surprise and saw that his eyes were squeezed tightly shut and he had dropped his hands to his sides, the script crumpled in them. 

“I did the wrong thing,” Kevin said into the microphone, “and I hurt you for no good reason except you’re _better than me,_ and I knew it and I couldn’t bear it. But if I made it to the top without you--” Kevin inhaled as if it hurt him to breathe. “It wouldn’t mean anything, it would all just be empty and all I’d think about would be how much better it would be if you were there by my side, I _know_ it.” Kevin’s voice cracked and he said again, fervently, _“Oh,_ I know it.”

Sami looked down at his script. Nothing since that first “sorry” was the same. Nothing.

“So I told them to go to the Trenches without me,” Kevin said, lifting the script again and snapping back to the words written there. “I won’t be going. I wish--I wish you could have gone, at least.” A long, slow breath. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

Sami realized his line was next. He blinked down at the words and managed to stammer, “Wait!” He swallowed. Somewhere on a screen an animated KO penguin would be pausing at the hospital door, a flipper on the doorknob. Ridiculous and cartoony, just like their lives. “You don’t have to leave,” Sami said. “You can stay here. We’ll watch the sun come up.”

The script called for KO to come back and sit down next to him without saying anything. The last line was Zany’s again. Sami looked over at Kevin, who was staring down at the script, unblinking, and delivered it: “We’ll be there, someday. We’re a team. We’ll get there together.” 

End of scene. 

Before the red light could go off, Sami gulped and added in a rush: “And if you _had_ gone without me--” Kevin flinched. “ _Look at me,_ ” Sami said.

Kevin raised his eyes from the microphone and looked at him.

“We’re a team,” Sami said. “Always. So if you _had_ gone ahead without me… in a way it would have been like I was there too. The whole time.” Sami shook his head and smiled ruefully. “The whole time,” he said again. 

They looked at each other.

After a while, the red light went out and Gregorio came bursting into the room. “Well!” Gregorio announced, “that was certainly unorthodox, but full of emotion, just what we wanted, good job.”

“I didn’t follow the script very well,” Kevin said, scrubbing his arm across his eyes.

“You did not follow the script _in any way whatsoever,_ ” Gregorio corrected him cheerfully. “Not remotely close. Not even in the same ballpark. But we can edit it, we can work around it, you’re done, so begone. Away with you.” He made shooing motions with his hands. “It was not a pleasure working with you.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get cast in any more animated movies,” Sami said as the studio door closed behind them.

Kevin’s chuckle was a bit shaky. “At least my kids will get to see me as a penguin once.” He rubbed at his nose and made a snuffling sound that made Sami want to find him a tissue. “Um.” He took a breath and launched forward: “Owen was hoping you’d go to the premiere with us.”

“Really?” Sami narrowed his eyes at Kevin.

“Yeah, really.” Kevin’s eyes slid from Sami’s face to his shoulders, or the wall behind him. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“You wouldn’t mind.”

Kevin coughed. “I’d like it,” he muttered. “Please.”

Sami looked at his red face and averted eyes and felt himself smiling, he couldn’t help it. After a moment of silence Kevin’s gaze flicked upward to Sami’s face and instantly winced away--then snapped back as if seeing something astonishing, something unbelievable.

“Tell Owen I’ll be there,” Sami said. 

Their scene in the movie would end with the sunrise flooding the hospital room, turning the darkness into dawn again. But no dawn, Sami knew at that moment, could be as hopeful as the smile on Kevin’s face.


End file.
